resumo Esse artigo investiga a leitura que Shaftesbury fez de Marco Aurélio, a fim de comparar a visão estóica da individual ida de e da ide nt ida de pessoal com o conceito lockia no de “self” e, de ma ne i ra mais ge ral, com os mo dos pelos quais a filosofia mo de rna entendeu o si-me s mo. A ênfase recai sobre a conexão int r í nseca ent re sistema e s u b j e (...) t i v ida de no estoicismo imperial. Discute-se a re s i s t ê nc ia de autores cont e m p o r âneos em aceitar a descrição da alma ra c io nal dos estóicos como um “self”. Também se discute a aplicação que Mic hel Foucault fez do seu conceito de “subjetivação” à id é ia estóica de “si-me s mo ”. palavras-chave Estoicismo; self; identidade pessoal; Shaftesbury; Marco Aurélio; Foucault. (shrink)

Volume three of Jaspers' Philosophy, which first appeared in German in 1932, contains his treatise on metaphysics with almost exclusive reference to the category of transcendence. In Jaspers' thought freedom aims at unconditional validity, and the realization of unconditionality can occur only in relation to transcendence. The appearance of transcendence is a phenomenon of historicity. Jaspers elaborates the meaning of transcendence in terms of formal transcending, existential relations to transcendence and in the reading of ciphers of transcendence. Formal transcending is (...) to aim at being itself. Jaspers thematizes upon those principles which attempt to discover being itself: a development from the thinkable to the unthinkable, the dialectics of transcending in thought, transcending beyond subject and object, three spheres of transcending along categorial lines. Jaspers devotes a substantial inquiry into the notion of transcendence relative to the categories of objectivity, reality and freedom. He recognizes that transcendence cannot be forced upon one's Existenz. Rather "transcendence manifests itself in my own attitude toward it. I grasp its being in the inner action that makes me myself; its hand is offered to me as I take it." The recognition of transcendence arises in existential boundary situations which Jaspers identifies by a kind of phenomenology of defiance and surrender, rise and fall, diurnal law and nocturnal passion, the wealth of diversity and the one. The final portion of the book deals with the reading of ciphers. A cipher is the language of transcendence, although it is not a communication that can be readily understood or even heard in consciousness at large. "It is only in the absolute consciousness of Existenz that a direct language of transcendence is truly, substantially present." Jaspers admits that ciphers of transcendence are ambiguous for the precise reason that the symbol is inseparable from that which it symbolizes. Consequently, even though ciphers bring transcendence to mind, because of the inseparable union between the symbol and the symbolized, there is no interpreting of ciphers. Jaspers develops the thesis that Existenz is the place of reading ciphers. Alluding toward the end of his metaphysics to the arguments for the existence of God, Jaspers affirms that the arguments over the course of history have floundered because transcendence is not as such. "No empirical determination and no cogent inference can assure us that there is transcendence at all. Transcendent being is encountered in transcending, but it is neither observed nor conceived."--J. R. (shrink)

*This work is no longer under development* Two major themes in the literature on indicative conditionals are that the content of indicative conditionals typically depends on what is known;1 that conditionals are intimately related to conditional probabilities.2 In possible world semantics for counterfactual conditionals, a standard assumption is that conditionals whose antecedents are metaphysically impossible are vacuously true.3 This aspect has recently been brought to the fore, and defended by Tim Williamson, who uses it in to characterize alethic necessity by (...) exploiting such equivalences as: A⇔¬A A. One might wish to postulate an analogous connection for indicative conditionals, with indicatives whose antecedents are epistemically impossible being vacuously true: and indeed, the modal account of indicative conditionals of Brian Weatherson has exactly this feature.4 This allows one to characterize an epistemic modal by the equivalence A⇔¬A→A. For simplicity, in what follows we write A as KA and think of it as expressing that subject S knows that A.5 The connection to probability has received much attention. Stalnaker suggested, as a way of articulating the ‘Ramsey Test’, the following very general schema for indicative conditionals relative to some probability function P: P = P 1For example, Nolan ; Weatherson ; Gillies. 2For example Stalnaker ; McGee ; Adams. 3Lewis. See Nolan for criticism. 4‘epistemically possible’ here means incompatible with what is known. 5This idea was suggested to me in conversation by John Hawthorne. I do not know of it being explored in print. The plausibility of this characterization will depend on the exact sense of ‘epistemically possible’ in play—if it is compatibility with what a single subject knows, then can be read ‘the relevant subject knows that p’. If it is more delicately formulated, we might be able to read as the epistemic modal ‘must’. (shrink)

There was once a leak from Hebdomadal Council. The Assessor told her husband, who told my wife, who told me that Monday afternoon had been spent discussing what Lucas would say if various courses of action were adopted, leading to the conclusion that it would be best to do nothing. I was flattered, but a bit surprised. The tide of philosophical scepticism had ebbed, and it was generally allowed that a reasonable way of discovering what someone would say was to (...) ask him. Dick Southwood did: he would quiz me in Common Room – sometimes ending "Thank you for letting me bounce these ideas off you" – and had reliable information about how one member of Congregation would react to various proposals. And not only me: he was a listening Vice-Chancellor, who used to bike from Wellington Square to Merton for lunch, greeting many as he passed them, and ready to stop if occasion warranted it. Of course, there are many other leaks. I remember once attending a meeting in the Town Hall to argue for cycle tracks, and someone coming up to me, and saying, "You’re having a tussle with Council, aren’t you? I think you ought to see the minutes of their latest meeting"; the next day there was a copy in my pigeon hole, giving me just the ammunition I needed. What members of Congregation tend the forget is the existence – the other side of the green baize door, so to speak – of a corps of bedells. (shrink)

In Epiphany Term, 1942, C.S. Lewis delivered the Riddell Memorial Lectures in the Physics Lecture Theatre, King's College, Newcastle, which was then a constituent college of the University of Durham. The Riddell Memorial Lectures were founded in 1928 in memory of Sir John Buchanan Riddell of Hepple, onetime High Sheriff of Northumberland, who had died in 1924. His son, Sir Walter, was, like his father, a devout Christian, active throughout his life in public affairs. He was Fellow, and subsequently Principal, (...) of Hertford College, Oxford, and Secretary, and subsequently Chairman, of the University Grants Committee---at a time when the interventions of the UGC in academic affairs were entirely benign. I myself have a special personal interest in the founder of the Riddell Lectures. Sir Walter and my father were contemporaries at Oxford and close friends. Owing to his untimely death I never knew him, though I am credibly assured that he must have viewed me when I was taken to Hepple in a Moses' basket at the age of six months. In being invited to give this lecture on the Riddell Lectures, I am not only honoured but enabled to discharge a debt of family.. (shrink)

x10.1 Locality Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation was always open to the complaint that it involved \Action at a Distance", contrary to the Principle of Locality. But it was very well established empirically, and had to be accepted. Similarly in contemporary quantum me- chanics we seem to have correlations between measurements that defy the Principle of Locality, but have to be accepted none the less.1 Although locality is a characteristic mark of causal con- nexion, it is not, as Hume supposed,2 (...) an essential one. Nor is it merely a uniformity we have found to hold for the most part|else we should feel little compunction in accepting that in some cases it happened not to hold. It is clearly an a priori principle, though not an absolutely necessary one. (shrink)

I must start with an apologia. My original paper, ``Minds, Machines and Gödel'', was written in the wake of Turing's 1950 paper in Mind, and was intended to show that minds were not Turing machines. Why, then, didn't I couch the argument in terms of Turing's theorem, which is easyish to prove and applies directly to Turing machines, instead of Gödel's theorem, which is horrendously difficult to prove, and doesn't so naturally or obviously apply to machines? The reason was that (...) Gödel's theorem gave me something more: it raises questions of truth which evidently bear on the nature of mind, whereas Turing's theorem does not; it shows not only that the Gödelian well-formed formula is unprovable-in-the-system, but that it is true. It shows something about reasoning, that it is not completely rule-bound, so that we, who are rational, can transcend the rules of any particular logistic system, and construe the Gödelian well-formed formula not just as a string of symbols but as a proposition which is true. Turing's theorem might well be applied to a computer which someone claimed to represent a human mind, but it is not so obvious that what the computer could not do, the mind could. But it is very obvious that we have a concept of truth. Even if, as was claimed in a previous paper, it is not the summum bonum, it is a bonum, and one it is characteristic of minds to value. A representation of the human mind which could take no account of truth would be inherently implausible. Turing's theorem, though making the same negative point as Gödel's theorem, that some things cannot be done by even idealised computers, does not make the further positive point that we, in as much as we are rational agents, can do that very thing that the computer cannot. I have however, sometimes wondered whether I could not construct a parallel argument based on Turing's theorem, and have toyed with the idea of a von Neumann machine. A von Neumann machine was a black box, inside which was housed John von Neumann.. (shrink)

Some of my best friends are women, but I would not want my sister to marry one of them. Modern-minded persons criticize me for manifesting such out-dated prejudices, and would like to send me to Coventry for a compulsory course of reindoctrination. They may be right. It could conceivably be the case that in due course the Sex Discrimination Act will be tightened up, even to the extent of our recognizing that there are no ‘good reasons why the State should (...) not recognize contracts which are in all respects like marriage, except for the sex of the parties concerned’. We can envisage a society so enlightened that the relations between men and women will be purely platonic and it will be a matter of no concern whether two people are members of the opposite sex or not: or, alternatively, our feelings could be so completely homogenized, that it will make no difference to an emotional relationship whether Leslie and Julian have only one Y-chromosome between them, or two, or none at all. In that event I shall be shown to be wrong, and my critics entitled to erect a monument to female equality on my grave. But I have doubts, and suspect that long after I am dead men will go on falling in love with women and women will continue to find their hearts wooed and won by men. And this fact, if it is a fact, makes a profound difference to our social institutions. I want to follow out the logic of social differentiation, relying as little as I can on putative facts about the differences between the sexes. Scientifically attested knowledge is scarce in this field. Many academics take refuge in a safe suspension of judgment, but this is a craven dereliction of duty. We have yet to develop an adequate theory of knowledge in social matters, and only by thrashing out the apparently telling arguments on this and similar issues can we clear our minds about the nature of social knowledge. Moreover, if those who might argue rationally draw back from doing so, they leave the field clear for others who suffer from fewer inhibitions and fewer scruples. And finally, serious social consequences can follow from public confusion about the logic of a situation, and what things are possible and what desirable. There is a danger that in our attempts to remedy the real wrongs done to women we shall only succeed, as with much modern legislation, in making a bad case worse. (shrink)

David Lewis criticizes an argument I put forward against mechansim on the grounds that I fail to distinguish between OL, Lucas's ordinary potential arithmetic output, and OML, Lucas's arithmetical output when accused of being some particular machine M; and correspondingly, between OM the ordinary potential arithmetic output of the machine M, and ONM, the arithmetic output of the machine M when accused of being a particular machine N. For any given machine, M, N, O, P, Q, R,... etc., I can (...) in principle calculate a Godel sentence for that machine - indeed infinitely many, depending on the Godel numbering scheme adopted. The Godel sentence of a particular machine can, I claim, be seen to be true, if that machine is adequate for Elementary Peano Arithmetic. Hence, if I were accused of being M, I can on that supposition see that the Godel sentence of M is true, since I am capable of Elementary Peano Arithmetic and the machine M is said to be an adequate characterization of me. (shrink)

It seems to me certain that the perception of foreign bodies of a certain sort, although a necessary, is not the only, part of the basis of our belief in other persons. The greatest disagreement with this view that I know of has been expressed by Professor Aaron in a paper published in Philosophy , XIX, 72. He claims that, since one does not really know “what it means to be a mind in one's own case,” the question whether we (...) can be certain that there are other minds is meaningless except as reducible to the question whether such propositions as “Robinson exists” are propositions which we can be certain about. And he tries to show that no more is involved in the analysis of “Robinson exists” than would be involved in the analysis of propositions of whose truth we can be perceptually certain, such as “That table over there exists” or “The Eiffel Tower exists.” My assurance that Robinson exists is not the assurance that something called Robinson's mind exists. It is the perfectly ordinary perceptual assurance that ‘the person over there’ exists. “You ask me how I am certain that Robinson exists and I answer, ‘Well, look, there he is.’ It would be absurd for anyone to say that he does not exist when I see him here before me and hear him talk and watch him move that chair.”. (shrink)

Elijah foretold evil for Ahab in the name of the Lord. ‘I will bring evil upon you; I will utterly sweep you away, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free in Israel’ … but when he heard those words, he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted and lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah saying ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled (...) himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days I will bring evil upon his house.’. (shrink)

In his illuminating discussion of ‘the Caspian question’ Sir William Tarn, basing his case mainly on Aristotle, Meteorologica, 2. 1. 10 and Strabo, 11. 7. 4, argued that Alexander knew of the existence of the Aral Sea. Tarn's conclusion, however, was soon challenged by Professor Lionel Pearson, who disagreed in particular with Tarn's interpretation of the passage in Strabo. But, although he undoubtedly succeeds in showing that some of Tarn's arguments are not valid, Pearson fails, as it seems to me, (...) to disprove his main contention. Indeed, Pearson misunderstands the line of Strabo's argument and is led to propose an unnecessary emendation of the text. (shrink)

In his illuminating discussion of ‘the Caspian question’ Sir William Tarn, basing his case mainly on Aristotle, Meteorologica, 2. 1. 10 and Strabo, 11. 7. 4, argued that Alexander knew of the existence of the Aral Sea. Tarn's conclusion, however, was soon challenged by Professor Lionel Pearson, who disagreed in particular with Tarn's interpretation of the passage in Strabo. But, although he undoubtedly succeeds in showing that some of Tarn's arguments are not valid, Pearson fails, as it seems to me, (...) to disprove his main contention. Indeed, Pearson misunderstands the line of Strabo's argument and is led to propose an unnecessary emendation of the text. (shrink)

Elijah foretold evil for Ahab in the name of the Lord. ‘I will bring evil upon you; I will utterly sweep you away, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free in Israel’ … but when he heard those words, he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted and lay in the sackcloth, and went about dejectedly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah saying ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled (...) himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days I will bring evil upon his house.’. (shrink)

I thank Professor Otteson for his review of Escape from Leviathan (EfL). His exposition of what I wrote is relatively accurate. I shall here do my best to correct any misunderstandings and reply to his welcome criticisms, ignoring our various points of agreement and his generous praise.

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

Q: What did the elephant say to the naked man?A: It looks O.K., but can you breathe through it?Let me begin by justifying that joke for those of you didn’t find it funny. The relationship between the morphology of the physical organs and their activities has long been a vexed issue in the philosophy of biology: the question of whether structure determines function is of course of contemporary importance in evolutionary theory. That there was a relationship between structure and function (...) was not in general a matter of doubt to the Greek theoretical biologists: but both the extent, and crucially the direction, of the dependence was. And the question need not be restricted to a consideration of the function of a particular part in isolation: when Aristotle takes issue with Anaxagoras for asserting that humans are the most intelligent species because they have hands, claiming rather that they have hands because they are intelligent, he is making a claim not just about the direction of explanation involved, but he is also implicitly at least indicating the scope of such explanations. For Aristotle, intelligence is one of the human functions: and that function necessitates the existence and development of certain organic structures. (shrink)

Ce texte répond aux critiques formulées par J.G. Hülsmann à propos de mon article “Ludwig von Mises, Théoricien de la Banque Libre”. J.G. Hülsmann me reproche une méthode scientifique douteuse sans voir que ses reproches ne s’adressent qu’à luimême. Pour lui répondre, il me suffit de le paraphraser. Le commentaire de Hülsmann a néanmoins un léger mérite, celui de mettre en exergue deux courts passages de l’oeuvre de Mises que j’omets involontairement dans mon article. Aussi il me revient de combler (...) cette lacune, d’interpréter ces deux passages, d’affiner et finalement d’appuyer le propos et la conclusion de mon article.This article is a reply to J.G. Hülsmann’s critics concerning my article “Ludwig von Mises, Théoricien de la Banque Libre”. J.G. Hülsmann blames me for an uncertain scientific method when these reproaches are aimed at himself. To respond, we just have to paraphrase. Nevertheless, for the credit of Hülsmann’s commentary, we have to say that it makes appear two short citations of Mises’ work that we unintentionally ignore in our article. So, to fill the gap, I have to interpret these citations, improve and finally rest the purpose and the conclusion of my article. (shrink)

Q: What did the elephant say to the naked man?A: It looks O.K., but can you breathe through it?Let me begin by justifying that joke for those of you didn’t find it funny. The relationship between the morphology of the physical organs and their activities has long been a vexed issue in the philosophy of biology: the question of whether structure determines function is of course of contemporary importance in evolutionary theory. That there was a relationship between structure and function (...) was not in general a matter of doubt to the Greek theoretical biologists: but both the extent, and crucially the direction, of the dependence was. And the question need not be restricted to a consideration of the function of a particular part in isolation: when Aristotle takes issue with Anaxagoras for asserting that humans are the most intelligent species because they have hands, claiming rather that they have hands because they are intelligent, he is making a claim not just about the direction of explanation involved, but he is also implicitly at least indicating the scope of such explanations. For Aristotle, intelligence is one of the human functions: and that function necessitates the existence and development of certain organic structures. (shrink)

The problem of how the brain produces consciousness, subjectivity and "something it is like to be" remains one of the greatest challenges to a complete science of the natural world. While various scientists and philosophers approach the problem from their own unique perspectives and in the terms of their own respective fields, Biophysics of Consciousness: A Foundational Approach attempts a consilience across disparate disciplines to explain how it is possible that an objective brain produces subjective experience. This volume unites the (...) cr me de la cr me of physicists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists in the attempt to understand consciousness through a foundational approach encompassing ontological, evolutionary, neurobiological, and Freudian interpretations with the focus on conscious phenomena occurring in the brain. By integrating the perspectives of these diverse disciplines with the latest research and theories on the biophysics of the brain, the book tries to explain how what John Searle calls a "conscious field" can be an adaptive and causal element in the natural world. (shrink)

After his refutation of the doubts concerning Proposition I.7, Ibn al-Haytham mentions three possible ways in which circles may intersect, submitting them to the following “intuitive” argument: one part of one of the two circles is situated inside of the other circle, and its other part is situated outside of it. One is therefore tempted to believe that the commentator accepts the principle of continuity in the case of circles, since his argument has the following meaning: if a circle is (...) divisible into two parts, one of which is situated inside the other circle, and the other outside of it, then the two circles cut one another. The author of this article proposes to establish the limits of this belief, on the basis of the following reflections: 1). It will be noted first of all that what could be called the ‘principle of the intersection of circles’ does not constitute ipso facto a principle in the mind of Ibn al-Haytham: no allusion is made to it in the commentary on Proposition I.1, among others. 2) It will be established later on that if one accepts that a line is the result of the movement of a point, the principle of continuity should be considered by him as something which is obvious by itself, without being stated. This conclusion will be based on an analysis of the notion of continuity in its classical meaning, and on Ibn al-Haytham’s commentary on Proposition X.1. 3) On the other hand, we should note the presence of a ‘sketch’ of topological language, which Ibn al-Haytham develops for the notion of a circle : one could say in this context that his reflection constitutes an important, if not principal, stage in the process which was to lead to the explicit formulation of the principle of continuity. (shrink)

La famille Poincaré trouve ses racines en Lorraine, dans les départements de Meurthe-et-Moselle, de la Meuse et des Vosges. Arrancy-sur-Crusne, Bar-le-Duc, Landaville, Longuyon, Lunéville, Nancy, Neufchâteau, Remenoncourt, Xirocourt sont quelques-unes des communes ayant vu naître des ancêtres des deux Poincaré les plus connus, Henri et Raymond. Cet article propose une histoire de la famille d’Henri Poincaré sur le temps long et prend appui sur une vaste synthèse des informations généalogiques existantes. Dans un premier temps j’explore rapidement les origines anciennes du (...) nom « Poincaré » et certaines branches indirectes de la famille ; j’analyse ensuite de manière plus fine les parcours des acteurs principaux de la branche directe, en particulier ceux du père, de l’oncle et du grand-père paternels d’Henri Poincaré. Je termine ce parcours en me focalisant rapidement sur les mariages et les descendants respectifs d’Henri Poincaré et de sa sœur Aline. Un tel essai est structuré autour d’une double ambition : d’une part, apporter une contribution à la biographie de Poincaré centrée sur la sphère privée ; d’autre part, caractériser finement le milieu social dans lequel Poincaré a pu évoluer au cours de sa vie. (shrink)

I am very pleased to see the response by J S Taylor to my critique of the “organs debate”. He makes some notable and important points, but also some errors to which attention should be drawn.Taylor erroneously attributes to me concern that the organ debate excessively focuses on saving the lives of a few people. My concern was about the narrow framework within which the debate is embedded and that it focuses on the lives of a few privileged people—those who (...) can pay—while largely neglecting the lives of those who cannot. The fact that some attention has been paid to such issues in some journals does not negate the importance of my claim. Moreover, it is not that the question of millions of premature deaths has …. (shrink)

This paper pays tribute to the distinguished legal and political philosopher Joseph Raz, who recently passed away. I present a response to Donald Davidson on conceptual schemes which tries to imitate Raz’s writing style, which attracts me despite the difficulties it poses. The response includes a definition.

La publication de l'Emile a produit une rupture épistémologique qui n'a pas échappé à Kant. Mais, rejetant toute assomption philosophique, l'ouvrage de 1762 met en récit une méthode qui prétend accomplir l'homme en ce qu'il est, tout en même temps qu'en ce qu'il doit être. Consacrant le pouvoir d'autoformation du sujet, Rousseau ouvre pourtant, à son corps défendant, une nouvelle brèche philosophique dans le rapport que ce sujet triomphant entretient avec ce que le Genevois s'obstine à présenter comme " la (...) bonté absolue du projet ". C'est à penser cette brèche, et le chemin pour la franchir, que se consacreront un certain nombre de penseurs et acteurs pédagogiques, qui peuvent ainsi s'inscrire dans la postérité éducative de l'Emile, et que présentent des spécialistes de chacun d'entre eux : Condorcet (A. Trouvé), Kant (B. Vandewalle), Pestalozzi (M. Soëtard), Fichte (J: M. Lamarre), Herbart (J: F. Goubet), Dilthey (D. Moreau), Dewey (M. Fabre), Freinet (R. Hétier). Ont-ils réussi? Il se pourrait que l'Emile, avec le noeud de questions qu'il tisse, soit encore devant nous. (shrink)

XLRI, in association with a few Tata Group companies, established the XLRI-JRD Tata Foundation in Business Ethics in 1991 to mark their long-standing commitment and contribution to business ethics in India. The foundation seeks to address this by publicly affirming the urgent need for ethics in business and the need to bring about a conducive culture in which it can thrive.